Nothing Is Sacred
by The Hatter Theory
Summary: Because nothing is. A place for the frightening what ifs. Unconnected oneshots -Newest:Idle Curiosity-
1. Nothing Is Sacred

**Nothing Is Sacred**

**By: The Hatter Theory**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the rights to Inu Yasha

**A/N:** Don't read this if you don't like the wangst. It's ultra wangst. Black hole inducing wangst.

* * *

You can't know that in just a few minutes everything will change.

You don't understand yet, and perhaps you never will. But you will know. Perhaps not today, not tomorrow or even a few years from now. Not yet, not for quite some time.

I see you, your years of misery given an end. You will come back and you will love and be at peace.

Until you aren't.

My last gift to you. Immortality is such a lonely thing, and you are a creature of overreaching needs and petty wants. I do this because I love you. My last gift. I do this because I hate you. Because, no matter if I am here or not, our lives have been linked, and I would have it no other way.

You do not realize, not yet, even as the world is shattering apart, that I am granting one last wish.

I see the future, see you suspecting what has been done to you. It will be the first real secret you have ever kept.

It will hurt.

You will bite you lip until it bleeds. Your heart will ache.

Every night.

A body that has literally been stopped, it's cells held in permanent stasis, will never age. You will not hunger, you will not age, you will not cycle through what all other humans experience.

But you will hurt. Oh, how you will hurt.

Your beautiful, honest blue eyes, so strange and unique and open, will become shuttered and dark. Those that love and trust you implicitly will stop. There will suspicion, and at first, it will be for no other reason than your own abruptly changing behavior.

But you don't know that, not yet.

Right now you are clinging to him like you will be allowed to cling forever, holding to him with the vain hope that the moment moves on.

If it is my final moment, I do not wish for it to last forever, and it won't. But it will be felt. This last bit of magic requires I stay just a little longer.

Your clinging now will become avoidance in just a few short years. Hatred. Resentment. You will not remember me, not for a decade. Not until he is dead in your arms and you understand it was nothing he did. Your poor first love, dead after throwing himself into battle after battle simply to avoid your withdrawal.

Only then will you see that none of it was his fault, that he was never involved, not really.

This is all you and me, in this last moment.

I savor these final images, this last bit of knowledge.

Suspicion will turn to fear to hatred. Sacred to sacrilege.

You will give up everything just to lose everything.

Comprehension will not come for some time.

I'd laugh if I wasn't flying apart, trying to focus everything into one final wish. My own.

You don't see it yet, the lonely years of wandering, of hiding. Of being so utterly lost. You will try, again and again, to belong. But from this moment you will never belong again.

Your heart will break a thousand times, a million. It will become a dark, twisted thing.

You will be angry, and you will hate.

I see you killing when cornered, your secret, such as it is, being discovered.

At that point you will still want to survive, you will cling to the vain, selfish hope that someday you might be freed of this curse.

You will justify their deaths, but you will always wonder.

You don't know yet that you will attempt to destroy yourself in every way imaginable. You will feel the pain of a thousand deaths. Burning, swords, drowning. You will submit yourself to the ignorant fear of superstitious peasants and the age old hatred of youkai. Rocks and claws, teeth and ropes. You will submit to all of these, and you will live.

The pale one will find you a curiosity. He will see you in a century and not recognize you. My work will be that finely crafted.

Human minds were not meant for eternity, for immortality.

But he is too perceptive not to notice the feel of your power, and he will not be half mad. He will remember, and will wonder what happened to the human girl his brother mated.

He will feel disgust when you feel only hope. A vain, desperate, selfish hope.

You will beg, and he will turn away in apathy.

You will continue this cycle for four centuries.

And then you will see your own mother walking to the store, and something in you will shatter.

You can't comprehend the pain that will accompany that moment, and even though I have only seconds to savor it, I take those moments. I revel in them, and could I laugh, I would.

You will watch from a distance, because you are afraid. You once belonged, but by know you know that you do not, that you can never belong again. You play through imagined longings in your head, of reunion and love. But there will never be love again.

It will take seeing her buried for you to seek him out. You will look for him in country after country, your despair flavoring your insanity until it becomes desperation.

You do not know that you will become worse than a mad, rabid dog, not now. Now you are clinging to him, hoping that love will conquer all.

You do not know that he will refuse your request, no matter how you try to reason. His senses tell him only that an ignoble beast has come, skull soft and brain functioning at only the most basic of levels.

You do not know that you will be soulless. Not yet. Right now you hope.

Time will take that away. I will take that away.

In six centuries, when the world has forgotten the existence of spirits and magic, when you have lived through tragedy after tragedy, you will break utterly, completely.

There will be only need. Desperation. The craving for darkness that only he might be able to give. You believe it with every cell of your being. It will be the only hope left to you, and it will drive you to obliterate the last bit of light that has remained untouched.

You do not yet know that you will kill a child to gain peace.

Right now you are imagining your mother, your brother, the youkai you love and the friends you want to keep safe.

You are thinking of a time after my existence. You are hoping, praying. You feel your heartbeat and his beating together and you are picturing a time where you can be happy with him. You will never know how easy it has been to destroy it.

Your peace will come only at the price of a child's life and the hatred of one that had been your ally.

It will not come easily, but you will give yourself over to your punishment. You do not yet know that you will thank him, with all the pieces of the broken thing you will call your heart, for cutting out your tongue, for shattering your skull and ripping out your organs. You cannot know that you will lay, a broken pile of ruined flesh and twisted need, welcoming the touch of a sword that is made to destroy every last part of you.

You cannot imagine, cannot understand. Indeed, how could you?

He will not know that it will be release. He will see only his grief, his pain, and you will weep. Your tears will be mistaken for contrition.

He will not know that you weep for gratitude. He will not understand that he is giving you what you have craved for centuries. Fury and anguish will cloud him to everything but the immediate satisfaction of your death.

Those who have aided in my destruction will all be touched. All will lose, ultimately all of them will pay the price.

You will remain as blind to it then as you are now.

But you, you will be my tool, the last breath that will live on beyond my end. Twisting the hearts of man and youkai alike has been simple, for their desires are simple.

But you desire nothing, not deeply enough that you will give anything, do anything for it.

You do not yet understand that you will.

You will be my greatest achievement of them all. Out of all the hearts I've broken, you have the farthest to fall.

* * *

A/N: Anyway, this was (if you didn't get it) from the jewels perspective. Written when I first woke up and unbeta'ed.


	2. Undertow

**Undertow**

**By: The Hatter Theory**

**Disclaimer**: I don't own the rights to Inu Yasha

**A/N:** This is an unrelated one shot. From now on, all the wangsty what if's will get dropped here.

* * *

Fate has a funny way of taking you by surprise. Despite my centuries of wisdom, or perhaps it is only experience, I am still surprised on occasion, still shocked into stillness. The rare moments this occurs, I feel as if the world speeds up around me as I slow down, and water pours into my lungs as I struggle to breathe.

You are on the other side of the window. I see you, and I know you. It has been centuries since I felt the peculiar tingle of your ki, innumerable moments since I tasted your scent on the air.

I want to walk in. I despise the restaurant, a fast food chain, and I want to walk in anyway. I want warn you, watch you, woo you, indulge in your presence.

I had not thought myself a masochist until this moment.

You are so happy, and it shatters what peace I had found these past years. You are happy and carefree and everything a human should be. Surrounded by friends, you are eating some vile concoction this century calls food and giggling as you read over a magazine. I can hear them asking which man in the picture you like best.

You are blessedly normal, blessedly happy.

It is nothing like my past, nothing like your future.

For a moment the idea of paradox flits through my mind. What would could I create, or shatter, if I simply walked inside and began speaking, if I told you who I was, if I imparted a name that had not been spoken in centuries, and explained the truth to you.

Your friends would think me mad, but you wouldn't. You would know better, wouldn't you?

Or perhaps not.

Now, in this moment, you believe that it all happens for a reason., that every pain is a pathway to happiness.

And now, as much as then, I think that it's not only ridiculous, it's insane. It's weak and pathetic and I hate it. I feel the old anger choking me, suffocating me, and you are oblivious. You are as blind to me as you are to the tragedy that awaits.

I could warn you. I could tell you that he dies a horrible death, and that you will not be able to save him. I could tell you that your beloved son is destroyed by slayers trained by Kohaku, who will have no hand in it, but will always feel responsible. It will be an end and a beginning none of them will survive.

Except you.

Families will be broken and beyond repair.

Even Rin will fall beneath fate's heel and be ground into the dust by a sickness that you understand but cannot fight.

I will watch this all happen within a decade, perhaps a little more. Human years are so short to me. It will amaze me how quickly your world fell into disrepair. It will always numb me how little I know, even though I know just enough to understand.

Enough to hurt. Enough to hate.

You are so happy now. I want to go in and tell you to stay in this time, with your friends and family, with your modern medicines and conveniences. You are happy and alive, and perhaps you can avoid the pain.

I want to keep you safe, as I failed to keep her safe.

I wish, knowing how foolish wishes are, for another chance. For a way to earn forgiveness, to erase the past.

But wishes are the root of evils I have often fought.

Or did, as it were.

But you're standing, and you're walking to the exit. The door opens and you and your friends are joining the bustling crowd of other humans.

Fate is something that, once invoked, we are forced to travel along. Even fighting the current, all that happens is that we grow tired and get pulled under, pulled by the current, and end up where we were eventually meant to be.

I have fought fate. I have escaped the near extinction of my species, I have battled time and I have raged against the injustices wrought on a small pack of people that once saved this land from utter destruction.

I am tired now.

I could fight, could try to keep you here.

But I am tired, so tired.

I watch you walk away. Soon you will be in my past experiencing your future, and nothing will be done. There is nothing that can be done. I turn away, and hope to forget.

I let myself be dragged beneath, let the water fill my lungs.


	3. Give It Your All

**Give It Your All**

**By: The Hatter Theory**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the rights to Inu Yasha

**A/N:** Because Naq wanted another one. Sorry it's not Miroku's POV Naq, but this is what came out.

* * *

I gave everything. One hundred and ten percent Kagome, that's me. I'm just that sort of girl. I always have been.

I have given.

And given.

And given.

And here, in this city full of people giving it their all, I realize that I am empty. I gave it all, and didn't save anything for the eventuality that I might end up right back where I started. None the wiser. None the nothing, actually. I don't understand people any better, I certainly don't understand myself any better. I'm not stronger, not smarter, not prettier or better. Only empty.

And when you look at me and ask me how I am doing, that's all I can think of. I can't muster a fine, or a well, or even a hello.

It is simply emptiness.

I never held back, and now I hold nothing.

My blank stare must mean something to you, because you open your mouth and I can see words forming.

We are strangers in the middle of a sea of strangers. Shadows hang over us, reminding us of what we once were, and will never be again. Strangers with a past. I can see the memories replaying in your eyes, can see them warring with the uncertainty of how to proceed.

Your mouth closes, nothing has escaped. Even if you always were the silent one, the inability to articulate something isn't your style.

I suppose it's something else different about you.

If I could speak, I'd say that I don't like this new you. You with short, black hair. You with dusky skin. You without your marks. You with ugly, dark brown eyes that aren't gold. You without claws and in modern clothes. You the mundane human. You are not you.

And worse, you are not _him_.

I know it's wrong, but I can't stop myself from hating you for it, just a little.

Maybe this was the loneliness Naraku felt, this hatred sprung on him by the need to feel something. It's bracing and frightening, how easy it is to feel something, anything again. It's terrifying how greedily I latch onto it, knowing it's bad, knowing it will burn, but needing the warmth too much to deny it.

Your mouth opens again, and you look hesitant. Is that what the world has done to the once great lord of the west?

I'm reminded of a stone worn down, weathered until there is nothing left but a pebble. I hate you a little more for letting it all get to you, for wearing down. You were supposed to be strong and fight and always be arrogant and formidable and unyielding.

"You've changed."

Those are the first words after your half muttered, shocked exclamation of my name. Out of everything you could have said, you chose that.

And I find it in myself to hate you little more.

"I'm not the only one," I manage to spit out, the words nothing but vitriol and loathing.

It is the right thing to say, because your eyes harden and for a moment I see the youkai inside of the man. Beneath it all, you are still Sesshoumaru. You are still a link to the past.

And you are walking away, blending into the crowd.

Too late I am screaming your name, realizing that I don't hate you, that I am desperate to know, to remember, to feel something. That the anger is fear and that I am alone and afraid and you can make it go away, you can do something by just being there.

But it is too late, and you are gone. You could easily be a spirit, you have vanished so thoroughly. Ignoring the angry cursing and shouting and grumbles, I shove my way through the crowd. Terrified and manic I am calling out your name, your true name, into the cold winter air. It drifts above to mingle with the breaths and words of a thousand other strangers to become meaningless.

I keep running, I keep screaming. My legs and sides cramp, my throat aches and I go hoarse.

But there is nothing.

The world fades.

I am alone again.

And it is my fault.

I gave that one moment my all.

Too bad it was my worst.

* * *

A/N: Waaaaaaaaaaangst.


	4. Presence

**Presence**

**By: The Hatter Theory**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the rights to Inu Yasha

**Warnings: Character death**

* * *

From the moment she had, in a pique of curiosity, asked him about the strange scene she had witnessed months before, it had been a quiet obsession, even a wistful thought. In a world where magic was abundant, it was not a strange idea. But her curiosity was strange, she knew. The feelings it evoked were nothing short of deranged. But they were there, and she understood the youkai even as she understood herself.

_'Have you ever done it?'_

Silence had answered her, and she had assumed that she had offended him. He was not like other youkai, would never be like other youkai. He would not believe as others did, perhaps did not feel the need to engage in the gruesome ritual so many others of his kind partook in.

_'My father.'_

And there it was, perhaps a secret, perhaps not. It lingered with her, the simple admission. Two words that easily shifted her perspective of him.

_'I suppose that's why you're never lonely.'_

She wondered what it was like, to be so treasured and needed that a person would want to carry her forever. Since her return she had not been useful. No longer a shard hunter or a jewel's guardian, she was simply a woman. One that had matured beyond her teenage crush and returned to find herself surrounded by people, but alone. When there were hanyou and taijiya to slay demons, her skills were not required. Ignorant of the time she now lived in, she still fumbled through, more hindrance than aid.

_'This Sesshoumaru is always alone.'_

And he was. No matter what he had done, no matter what strength he had earned, no matter how he had battled, he was alone. She pitied him for that even as she empathized. In the years since her return, Rin had grown, was, typical of the times, already looking for a husband, though she was still only in her teens. The imp that had followed him had vanished back to his people, and the twin headed dragon had chosen to remain in the village with the girl that had loved it so.

_'You never hear him?'_

_'I did not wish to. I have only his strength.'_

And why would he want to hear anyone? Perhaps he was happier without voices in his head, whispering and assuring him of their presence. Though she knew beyond all doubt that he had respected his father, she knew it did not mean he would want to feel him, hear him.

_'I think it would be nice, to always be with someone.'_

It had been an admission that had earned a curious look, not one of disgust or disdain, as she had expected. Assessing and thoughtful. If she had said it to anyone else, they would have laughed uncomfortably or left, assured of her own madness. But she didn't think it so crazy. Maybe it was from living with youkai for so long, or perhaps it was because she no longer connected with humanity.

_'Why?'_

_'To always be needed, to always help someone, to be treasured and carried.'_

An eternity of moments followed her quiet explanation, which had been more musing than anything else. Whimsical despite it's nature, it was little more that a trail of a thought given breath.

_'You are a strange human.'_

_'I suppose so.'_

He stared off into the distance, not really seeing his ward as she played with the kitsune that had begun visiting less and less. She watched them, feeling the disconnect growing until it felt as if she was standing on the other side of a vast sea, watching them live and grow beyond her.

When he had left, she had considered their conversation, moved beyond it, although the idea had lingered.

A season had passed when he found her again, this time alone in the clearing where the well stood, shaded by a trees dense foliage. It would be the first time he sought her out while she was alone, and she couldn't help but remember the conversation that they had engaged in months before.

_'You need to be needed.'_

It was a quiet observation, one that she had no trouble admitting to with a quiet nod. While others had noticed her disconnect, they had never asked why, perhaps too embroiled in their own lives to care or too afraid of the answer to ask. But he was a creature of observation and curiosity, even if he hinted at little.

_'I am alone.'_

She nodded again, quiet acquiescence to the offer that was hidden within those words.

He was alone and needed. She was lonely and wanted to be needed. Even as he was kneeling in front of her, gold eyes ever apathetic, she knew what he was offering, knew what he was seeking and requesting. She could give him someone to hold onto, warmth to feel when time began to take it's toll.

_'I will always be there for you.'_

It was a promise, one that she would not let herself break.

_'I will always carry you.'_

She had not expected a vow in return, but it soothed her, lifted her, warmed her. There was no fear, there was only loneliness and need. No matter what else happened, she would always be there to comfort him, to give him peace, and he would keep her safe.

The pain was unbearable, but she bore it, eyes widening as his hand plunged into her chest with effortless ease, tearing through bone and flesh and wrapping around her heart. She could feel it, fingers grasping at the organ before the world faded.

Within moments he had consumed her heart, felt her warmth encompassing her, hands gently holding his own.

A human that would never leave him, would never hate him, a presence that would always accept him no matter his thoughts or actions. The loneliness faded as he felt her hands gently cradling his heart, an innocent thought that felt no less true despite it's whimsy.

Once he had consumed his father's heart for strength, and now he had consumed a pure, giving heart for peace. Even as her body melted beneath his acidic poison, erasing every physical trace of her existence, he could feel her within him, a quiet voice that whispered to him, assuring him that he would never be alone, that he would always be cared for.

His own voice whispered back, promising to carry her safely, to treasure her and to protect her. He could do nothing less.

* * *

A/N: Yup, I totally just romanticized cannibalism. Preparing for flames in 3...2...1...


	5. Sentinel

**Sentinel**

**By: The Hatter Theory**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Inu Yasha.**

**Author's Note:** This one is for Naq, who requested something from Miroku's POV.

* * *

It's dark when I feel the tale tell brush of a strong barrier against my senses. Sighing, I turn, look at my wife, beautiful even in the darkness, her eyes closed and lips slightly parted in sleep. I brush a kiss against her forehead, push myself up from my sleeping pallet and walk past my children, beautiful and innocent.

It is not difficult to walk out into the night, to navigate the paths between huts filled with other sleeping people. Despite the darkness of the moonless night it is not difficult to spot you walking from you own, blind to anything but a call only you can hear. But it is difficult to follow, knowing what lies ahead. It is difficult to repeat a pattern, to find myself in the same place, powerless and tired, afraid and alone.

And yet above all, I am sympathetic. It is perhaps my greatest sin, even more so than my silence. This understanding is something that I abhor and yet cannot deny. Would that I could, perhaps things would be simpler.

I know that you know I follow. I know that he knows I am near. This is a secret between three, though there is little doubt it would have been best between only two. My curiosity had, until many months ago, been my greatest sin. Now this secret, my sympathy, my silence, has weighted down my soul until my curiosity has turned to jaded exhaustion. Knowledge has always been said to be a burden, something that comes at a high cost. I am only too aware of how high that cost can be. I suppose I am still surprised that it would be you to show me.

Once you hit the tree line I go no further. I feel the barrier, it's energy like lightning against my consciousness. I dare not tread beyond that line. Once, curiosity would have taken me beyond it. No longer. Now I am heavy beneath my burden, beneath my sympathies.

You could not have known what coming back would bring you little joy. An expectant mate you had grown beyond, matured past, and duties you were expected to fulfill. Roles to play. Three years is a long time to be away. I suppose you could not have remembered everything, only the longing, the need for those you loved.

Your sorrow is a palpable thing, though I doubt you realize it. It lifts only on the moonless nights, and perhaps I am the only one that notices. I am sure I am the only other conscious of this, your greatest secret, perhaps the only one you hold. I wonder sometimes, if your sadness is only apparent to me because I have seen you truly happy, that I am aware only because I know the truth.

It is our secret, our sin. You stand out of place and time, having sacrificed everything. Once, I almost made that choice. I know the fear, I know the loss. It is why I cannot fault you now. You gave up everything, and you came back to little more than nothing. Your stories made it clear that your world was a safer one, a happier one. In these times it is only too apparent that what little happiness that can be found must be grasped, nurtured, treasured. If your happiness can only be found in the forbidden, then it is so, although my heart breaks for you, a child of the light that fell into the darkness.

I have found my small joys, and though I need not hide them, need not meet them in the cover of utter darkness, I understand how desperately they are needed. I do not begrudge you this one small joy, however furtive, however dangerous. I understand what it is to cling to hope as if it were air. Your love could not flourish in the sun or even beneath the moon. It can only be found in darkness. But in the shadows is where secrets grow best, in the dark corners of our hearts where they are kept.

I stand guard for you, and for your happiness. You, who sacrificed so much while expecting nothing in return. If any should bear witness to you attempts at solace, let it be me, who understands loneliness. If any should hear the whispered sighs of passion carried on the wind, let it be me, who has known despair. And should any be forced to carry the burden, let it be me, who has felt defeat.

I will hold the weight you carry in the stolen seconds you find escape. I am the keeper of your secret in the moments you are free.


	6. Marionette

**Marionette**

**By: The Hatter Theory**

**Disclaimer**: I don't own the rights to Inu Yasha

**A Note:** Kagome's POV

* * *

Threads of fate wrap around us, tightening until they strangle and suffocate. They drag us forward into the future, uncaring of tangles or snarls. When collision is guaranteed, suffering is imminent. I have been bound more tightly than any other, a thousand wires coiling around me, tightening until I bleed. A skillful trap set by my own innocent ignorance.

The threads that spread and tie to others are the ones I have always treasured, have always maintained. Willfully, foolishly, I severed dozens without thought to the repercussions. Fraying ends are the only sign of a life left behind, of loved ones lost and sacrificed dreams. Floating aimlessly around me, reminders of a past in the future, ghosts that cling, irrevocably tangled in my present.

Perhaps it is because I have loved these threads so much, hands of memory caressing what could have beens and shattered possibilities that they are frayed. Or maybe it is time that blurs the edges until surety becomes indistinct, half imagined truth. I could be dreaming, could be surviving in those vague, spectral fantasies.

Crisscrossing lines of destiny tie me to the present, to those that tug and force me into waking and away from dreams. Chimeric vagaries fade in the light of the sun, lurking in shadows as a hundred other threads are seized and pulled. Duty calls, and I contort, each thread shuddering impatiently, awaiting my attentions. These threads too are frayed, but from carelessness and ignorance. They are pulled too hard and my heart and mind resist the paths I am forced upon.

Selfishly, I sometimes resent them. Sinful incomprehension and benighted recklessness trapped me, bound me. And they are my own failing. One simple choice made in the blink of an eye was enough to welcome these threads, allowing them to wrap and sink into me, to create veins of purpose and duty.

I am led, step by step, deeper into a tangle of obligation and province.

Providence and it's incumbents pull, demand and dominate, careless of how distorted I become in my contortions to move as is willed. These threads are born with grace, with the sort of placid blandness that half smiles hide. They are tolerable, each bringing it's own small compensation.

But there is one thread that sinks into my flesh more deeply, curls and coils around my heart until it is indistinguishable from it. It is a silken cord ensnaring and entangling. Beguiling in it's beauty, I did not see it's strength, nor the precarious risk it posed. Even now it is caressed lovingly, if fearfully. Perhaps the most treasured of each link to this life, it is also the most hated, almost despised. Confliction only became possible when I allowed it access in another moment of blithe rashness.

Rarely pulled, when it is I am helpless to fight. Leading me from the dust and sweat of habitual order and repetitious banality, I follow it along the path of keen yearning in hopes of silent promises for fulfillment. Your hands, graceful in their movements, pull and demand, ignorant of what it is you provoke. With each motion the thread becomes more gnarled and twisted and it is my dearest hope that you remain blind to the vinculum it has become.

What threads tangled to pull me to you, you to me, again and again?


	7. Umbra

**Umbra**

**By: The Hatter Theory**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the rights to Inu Yasha

* * *

We are reflections of ourselves. Beneath the night sky we a spirits that escape our forms of clay and sweat and whisper through the darkness. Hidden beneath the ebon blanket of midnight we are pulled inexorably closer. We shed the truths of the sun and banish the shell of honesty given by the moon. In complete darkness revelation is found, more brilliant and vivid and soft than anything that could survive in the harsh light of either the unyielding sun or the capricious moon.

A spell is murmured over lips that strayed too close to memory, becoming vague fantasy more with each passing day. A sigh of my name and yearning is woven into every syllable.

I have offered you everything, but you refuse all. My fingertips travel over your face, memorizing the lines again. Only a handful of days has passed and yet I feel that I have lost each detail, like grains of sand from my palm that are carried away by time's wind.

You accept only my touch, my breath as it courses over your skin and I drown in your kiss. I breathe in the scents of you, the sounds and sighs and feel of you, so delicate within my hands. Coarse, rough fabric chafes unpleasantly against my skin and I try to forget that you have have turned away from silks and soft linens.

Your all too human hands tangle in my hair, a hum is lost between our lips. Your hair is limp, dirty as I thread clawed fingertips through it, determined to keep you close until I have robbed you of breath and superfluous words fail you. I would not hear you stammer apologies for the filth inherent in a peasant's life, not when you so willingly refute an invitation into my home, with it's myriad scented soaps and ever ready baths.

I swallow each moan and cry, keeping them only for myself to savor. I hide them so deeply that they are forever protected from seeking eyes, a secret that is as much a cipher as my smile. I accept what little you will give, hoard it greedily for the time when you are beyond my reach. I escape my suffering even as I languish in it's cause, immersing myself in each stolen moment because I cannot bear to think of the day you will be gone, I cannot contemplate your refusal to become mine, safe from the coil of simple mortality.

But you, you have proven a thief with the lightest of fingers and the deadliest of intents. My pride has shattered and you hold the broken pieces of me, reducing me to nothing more than a guilty shadow of my former self. Your eloquent rejections leave no room for appeal and even though I am debased and ruined, I will not fight against them. Too humbled to beg, I pray with each passing moment that you will return the shattered fragments and piece them together.

I adjure with touch and implore with each kiss.

But you answer succinctly with your despair and hidden reason, wordlessly refuting my every hope. Bittersweet and compassionate, fragile and powerful, drawing me in even as you push me away.

And like fog, we both fade with the rising of the sun, the lightening of the sky dimming our shadows. Spirits that dissolve beneath the light of day, knowing that exposure brings death. And yet...

I leave that place, settle into myself, and I realize that I am now more spirit than youkai, more whisper and shadow than strength. I am fading. The truth of sun and moon become mere reflections, misdirection to hide emptiness.

And the truth of moonless nights follows you, cradled in your viciously tender hands.


	8. Reprisal's Benefaction

Reprisal's Benefaction

By: The Hatter Theory

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Inu Yasha

A Note: If you don't expect wangst by now you're an idiot. Character death. For Kaye, who asked for something from Shippou's POV.

* * *

I am nothing if not patient.

When you first lay eyes on me again, there is no recognition. I am not offended. It has been three hundred years, and you have no reason to remember me. It is not me that I want you to remember. Your eyes are old, wizened. Even if you appear to be another human in your prime, much as I, we recognize each other for what we are. You are among the oldest, the elite. You are a whispered legend still used to terrify children and warn travelers and warriors alike.

I am a simple wraith in the shadows. I am not known, nor have I ever felt the need to be. Unlike you, I never hungered for power or conquest. My ambitions are much more humble, much more personal.

It takes centuries to understand a legend and how to destroy it.

But I am nothing if not patient.

Though we are not human, though we both remain outside of the natural order of time and karma, there is no kinship. You cannot find it in anyone, and even if you could, I would not want it.

It does not stop me from slipping into the thriving business you have created. You say nothing. After all, I am simple and weak. I am merely trying to get by. I ask for nothing, no favors or respect. I do not seek recognition or even status. It is easier to hide the truth when eyes slide over you. Simple adjustments create the strongest illusions. Because you think me simple you do not see my cunning, because you think me desperate you do not see my strength.

For months we have passed each other by, and in those moments I am a nonentity, but I don't mind.

I have waited countless years, each minute that passes once my plan is set into motion is _nothing_.

Patience is my virtue, a learned one, a commanded one. It is foreign to my kind and our wily natures. But anything can be learned, as I have found. As you will soon understand. Patience. Cunning. Magic.

Hatred.

I am as sleek a weapon as ever could have been created. Every cell of my being is devoted to obliteration. Even your now useless sword would not compare to my ability, honed on a wheel of fury and loss for three hundred years.

I am a cancer that has swallowed disease to make myself stronger.

And now, as I stare down at you, my magic tightening around you, coiling until you are shackled and helpless despite your fury, you still do not recognize me. But it has never been about me. There is no karma for youkai, there is no divine punishment or reincarnation, no coming back. We are all spirits given solid form, and when we die there is nothing.

I make sure that as I enact retribution, and I become judge and ultimately, executioner, that you understand who this was about.

I whisper her name and your eyes widen, immediately recognition sets in, but not of me. There is a shadow there, in the deepness of your wisdom, a pain. And I savor it, draw it out. Because while others did not understand her sobbing pleas, I did. I waited, as she waited, for you to save her.

I was patient.

I am still patient.

I draw it out, I watch your suffering, and the anguish I evoke is only the beginning. I want you to hurt. I want you to cry tears of blood.

Even when my magics are pulsing in my hands and I am gripping your skull, feeling the damage I wreak, you fight me. Your anguish turns to fury. Humans have machines for what I am doing to you. Humans have used similar techniques to kill their worst offenders. But you will not die. Not yet.

The tears begin. They are not sorrow, or pain. They are the body's natural response to extended torture. You are a statue in a church crying blood and I am pulling you down from your pedestal.

I expected you to break free. I expected you to fight me.

But you will not win.

I will blaspheme the legend and I will obliterate your existence.

Each blow is a burst of light in my vision. Your poison is acid but it is nothing compared to the bitter medicine I have taken every day since she died. My blood mixes with sweat and I can't tell the difference between them. I do not falter, the pain is only a suggestion of itself. Her face is firmly entrenched in my mind, her cries for you. Her last breath raspy, broken syllables of your name.

I have been patient.

I have waited in the shadows, I have learned everything to become as effective a predator as you ever were. I have swallowed the darkness and become what the shadows fear.

It does not matter that we are leveling a city.

It does not matter that we are both on the verge of breaking.

It does not matter that this is taking longer than I thought.

I am patient.

When we are both only bloody, grotesque parodies of ourselves, I go for the kill.

As do you.

It was not unexpected. I did, in some way, hope for it.

There is nothing to live for once this is finished. And even as I am finished, my task is complete. We stumble, only feet away from one another when we fall. I am content. The darkness within me cradles a seed of light, and knowing that only nothingness waits, I bathe in that small ray of light. Her blue eyes, her warm smile. Her light is pain and salvation. Her purity lived beyond the earthly form and it is destroying me.

"I once loved a human woman."

It is a whisper so quiet even I almost miss it.

"Kagome."

We are dying. And the last word that leaves your lips, a strangled gurgle, is her name. It is eerily similar to the moment I watched her die, your name a scraped, raw exhalation of longing and regret.

Maybe I have done us both a favor.

"Mother."

She was our last breath.


	9. Blue Eyes

Blue Eyes

By: The Hatter Theory

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Inu Yasha

* * *

He stared at the blue eyes blinking up at him. The smile that had been in those blue eyes when they had met was gone, leaving room for only fear, for doubt. They were not the blue eyes he remembered. She was not afraid of him, had never been afraid him. They had fought, clashed, raged at one another time after time, fighting with words and power until there was nothing left but their contrition for something barely remembered before falling into one another's arms.

But there had never been fear.

Why was she afraid? Why did she doubt? She had never doubted.

"What's wrong?"

She didn't speak, and he stared down at her, feeling himself grow more angry with each passing second. There wasn't a time in memory that she had not been ready with a comeback, that she had not been afraid to speak her mind. Why did she hesitate now? Her body trembled, as if words escaped to get out, pushing against the very boundaries of her skin, bottled up inside of her until they clattered inside of her.

She was shaking, and not from desire. That hadn't happened since she had faced him down and spoken the words that had wound around his heart and found the cracks, forcing herself in until there had been no choice but to submit or die to escape the thought of her.

"Please, please let me go," She whimpered.

She was cowering away from him, her voice ragged and cracking with the sound of tears.

She was _cowering_. What had happened to his mate, the strong, prideful creature that stood up to anything and everything? His Kagome, that stood defiantly in the face of all obstacles and threw herself into danger, would never tremble or whimper when afraid. He wasn't sure she even knew the meaning of the word, foolhardy creature that she was.

"Kagome," He murmured, bringing a clawed finger up to her tear stained cheek.

"Please let me go," She whispered again in her broken voice.

"Mate," He started, uttering the name that had always earned him forgiveness. He tried to sooth her through their bond, but found only shadowed darkness, a vast, endless emptiness beyond it. How had that happened? When? Why wasn't she responding? Had she shut herself off from him, had he done something so bad that she had closed herself away, found some way to hide?

"I'm not her!" The voice shouted.

Something shattered inside of him. Fractures spread out, a mirror that fell away, shard by shard until the truth was revealed.

A loud crack reverberated through the air, snapping through the silence and around him, echoing in his ears but not truly heard. The soft thump that followed went unnoticed even as he watched her fall.

Blue eyes stared back up at him from a foreign face.

How foolish. He had seen the blue, been drawn in. But it was the wrong blue, it was not the stormy sapphire depths that he had drowned in. They were merely sweet sky blue, a blue that belonged to a woman that could not be, was not in fact his mate.

Flashes of blue, none of them the _right_ blue.

Where was she?

He left the body lying on the ground, walking on without even noticing it, indeed, it was the furthest thing from his mind, which already searched for clues about his missing mate. His senses searched for her along their bond but found only an abrupt end.

Where was she?

Something dark brushed against his consciousness, an icy blue shadow that burned and singed, warning of darkness within it's confining whisper. He fled from it, searching beyond the end of the bond, looking for the welcoming softness that had always laced through it, whispering sweetly to him.

Her voice soothed through his mind like a dark wave, banishing the burning chill and wrapping around him, piecing the mirror back together.


	10. Idle Curiosity

**Idle Curiosity**

**By: The Hatter Theory**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the rights to Inu Yasha

**AN:** An exercise in perspective.

It begins with the taste of sweat and tears and salt stinging your tongue from the scent laying heavy in the air. Somehow it overpowers the copper of blood and the bitter miasma of death that is already clinging to the earth, the specter shadow that lays itself, heavy and stifling over the spring field, deadening color until there is nothing but muted gray. Even to your eyes the world seems dim.

People have died, as is natural in war, and the battle you have emerged from was nothing less. But you are not moved as the rest are. It is not your way, even when you almost wish it was. You envy, because they don't taste the salt of tears and sweat, they release the despair, they have reason to despair.

You tell yourself it is merely idle curiosity, this curiosity of despair, and when their world is caving in and falling apart, you walk away. It is all you can do, even if leaving is considered cowardly, you know there is no other option. They would not welcome your words of honor and comfort, because what is comfort to you has never been and will never be a comfort to them.

Different species, different blood, different souls.

You almost envy them, but as you walk away and realize that you feel nothing but relief that the war is over, you do not. Perhaps you haven't paid enough, or you have paid too much. The past seasons have taken more from you than you had ever considered possessing, but there have been compensations. Only time will tell if they were enough. You don't feel like considering the future, and so you don't.

But you don't think about the past, either.

* * *

The call to battle is one that cannot be avoided, and you think for a moment you might be able to deny them the questionable pleasure of participating. But there is no other choice, and you hate that they must become involved. But they are strong, and the war has barely just passed, they will still be ready, will still know. You do not expect them to find favor with it, you know they will hate you.

But this enemy is strong, which doesn't matter. That they are numerous does.

You don't want to ask, but you do. You don't want to pray, because prayer is for asking and asking implies need and you don't want to need. But the knife twists and you're left knowing at least this; you need them, and you pray that they answer before the land is scarred more than it can bear.

You nod in gratitude when they appear and lead them to the battlefield, and you watch as they fight, bellowing their fury (in your name and damned if that isn't utterly mystifying, unintended and unexpected) to the sky. You watch as power clashes and bursts in garish antithesis, fire and water colliding to steam and burn, and it burns everything it touches, even you.

Blood takes over everything and you become a wild, berserk creature, growing and howling and you feel and revel in the putrid sweetness of flesh tearing to strings between your teeth.

You are fearsome and strong, power radiating from every corner of your being and red red red hazing everything with a fierce joy. This is the power that has always been yours, beyond swords and attacks that must be summoned, this is the strength that was born to you, the spirit that calls out when you are contained, collapsed down and caged within such a tiny form, every cell shivering and shuddering at it's confinement. This is what longs to be free every moment, and it is let loose with abndon.

You are yourself most in these moments, monstrous and beautiful.

Even when the battle is over, when blood stains the field a red that will not fade for decades, when spirits cling to the dirt (and you feel them beneath your feet, stirring restlessly already) you are hesitant to return to your smallness, not ready to give up the freedom of being just yet.

But when the words reach you, even at your great height, they are a sigh laced with amazed blue eyes.

"Glorious."

She has always been what you expected, except for then, and that is the moment you remember to notice her, the fierce, gentle she that the beast recognizes as natural enemy and willing ally.

You do not bow, you have never bowed. But you have asked and prayed before today, and those are things you do not do either. And if those surrounding you find it strange, maybe you find some amusement in their consternation when you give your best approximation of a bow, your hulking form shadowing over the small group.

* * *

You dance around it, because conquest is never so satisfying as when it is the result of careful planning. But you dance feebly, clumsily, because she is surprising you at every turn, reacting in ways no proper woman should. You didn't know if her odd manners and bold ways are repulsive or gratifying, but they are interesting, they are drawing. She reacts as no woman would, and because of that you are dancing closer, much closer much sooner than you thought you would. Plans never survive first contact, but she's taking them and blowing them like so much smoke into the warm winds, words and ideas lost in the sky.

You plan to entrap but she's dancing around you, glancing over your skin and consciousness and you're sure for a moment that she's playing the same game, that she's moving to entrap. Like two stars orbiting the same end, there's something waiting, waiting and you can't wait because the end could be beautiful, could be horrible, could be anything, the only certainty is that it will change, change you and her both, change everything.

When the dance ends it just begins, lips pressed hungrily, angrily, slick and slippery, the edges of self finding the spaces that fit together perfectly, rasping harshly, pleasantly, hurting and soothing away the impatience, granting something unnamed. It's dragging everything out longer and the wait is getting to be too much but suddenly it's everything, the waiting, the eternities of pleasepleaseplease and touch and gasps.

Fighting. You have been fighting (all dances are battles and maybe this one more so than any other) and you are still trying to pull yourself back together when she presses her lips to yours again, hungry invitation. Something lurks, angry and bestial, something entirely too _you_ that she is provoking and pulling on, pulling out until the ends of the civilized creature they all assume you to be are unraveling to reveal the monster you are. With an ease that would shock courtesans and an artlessness that would shame them she bites at you lips and slips her tongue against yours, the wet, shuddering heat of it throbbing and pulsing everywhere. The dark thing inside of you that she pulls at makes you clench your jaws tight, makes them ache for the want of biting down on her flesh to feel the heat of her blood on your tongue.

You know you'll break her, tear her apart if she keeps going, hands moving over your chest, you'll rip her into pieces so small no one will ever remember what she had been like before you. But she's determined and pulling carelessly, and you wonder if maybe, maybe, she wants to bruising, bleeding sharpness of you sliding, smoothing, pressing, wants you to try because you can't, and even if you somehow can, she might like the pain, the visceral shuddering pulsing throbbing (it's everywhere now, drowning out the world because blood will always be that much stronger, that much thicker than you want it to be) that is as much as part of you as you try to hide.

Ache and pleasure and pleasurable ache, all combine, blend until there is the sound of a scream in your mouth, ragged and pained and pleasured. Blood is on the air, thick and hot, blood on your tongue, sweet and filled with power, and her scream, echoing into you until it reverberates in the place where the notion of a soul once resided.

* * *

When did breathing become so difficult? Unable to remember, you scour your mind for the moment, and even now you know, you know the moment it happened, but you can't look at it because experience tells you where those thoughts lead. But avoidance only lasts for so long, and even though you are a master of the tactic, you know that the truth will be there, waiting.

How is it that her face becomes a mirror for the truth you try to ignore? Every fine line and wrinkle, every smile that deepens them, every carefree laugh and irritated frown become highlights, a reminder. Mocking you with all of the things that made you love her, they now make you hate that small, imperfect part of herself. And it would not be an imperfection if it would last, if it wouldn't wither and weather and die. It would be perfect, she would be perfect-

You try not to think about it, but you do anyway, it's unavoidable the longer you know her, the closer you hold her. Nothing can hold back the wretched, greedy talons that time is, that death demands. You hold her, hold her close like a ghost that is already disappearing, and try not to break her fragile (human!) bones in your fervor to keep her close. Praying (you don't pray, you don't, except you are) for more time, for more breath, for more, because more greedy than even time and death is love, and you are a prisoner inside of your own need.


End file.
